Israeli kids love raves.



All over central Israel, and particularly in Tel Aviv, you'll see posters for this party or that, with this DJ or that, in this forest or in that desert. But for the hard-core, authentic raves, you will not see any posters at all. These raves are organized by a group of underground partiers, who claim some deserted plot of land, book a DJ, and send invitations through a sub-cultural network of rave enthusiasts. Under the stars, brave DJs spin trance and house music for energetic teenagers breaking the law for the sake of a transcendental revelry.



Recently, I was privileged to dance at an Israeli rave.



But it wasn't a rave serving up drinks, a pill or a joint whose effects were anchored by electronic sounds and a four-on-the-floor beat. It was a rave serving up songs of justice and love for Israel, anchored by the steady beat of a Jewish heart.



It was a rave of the Jewish spirit.



It took place along the desert shores of Gush Katif, while they were still filled with Israeli homes and children. Not many people knew about this rave. Like any illegal rave, you heard about it in certain circles. The media knew about it, but they didn't like to talk about it.



And like any illegal rave, you had to take risks to get in. Thousands of intrepid youth succeeded in penetrating army roadblocks and checkpoints.



Either the soldiers, who secretly longed for the rave, let infiltrators get inside, or people walked hours through fields just to cross the border. I pretended to be asleep in the back seat of a car driven by a Gush Katif resident, who had the limited free-access permit.



We were all there for one reason: to stop the Disengagement. We all believed that the Disengagement would only wreak disaster for Israel in the long run. We all believed it was a dangerous appeasement of terror and world opinion. But most of all, we all believed that it was blatantly immoral to uproot families from their homes, livelihoods and communities, which the Jewish State was supposed to protect.



During my three weeks in Gush Katif, I joined thousands of idealistic and intelligent teenagers who risked arrest and jail to defend this small, yet productive, Jewish strip. We did whatever we could to make the pre-Disengagement experience positive and bearable for the residents. We cleaned abandoned houses so that more people could hold down the fort. We planted crops in hothouses because owners had to meet quotas or they were too afraid to sow. We cooked, we cleaned, we set up tent cities, we ran summer camps. In the evening, we gathered together at the N'vei Dekalim town square or by the shores of the beach ? singing, talking, hoping, praying.



We really thought we could stop the expulsion. We had a powerful narcotic that fed this illusion: our love for the land, our love for the Jewish people and our love for Israel. We hoped that our presence in the Gush would make it difficult for the army to function ? physically and spiritually. We wondered how the expelling soldiers could not feel our energy, our joy, our pride, and then say to their commanders: "I don't want to take them out, I want to join them!"



I had been to the raves of Tel Aviv, but none equaled the one in Gush Katif. Never before had I felt such unity, idealism and self-sacrifice, inspired by self-love.



In nightlife raves, many Israelis lose themselves. They empty themselves of any self and escape reality for a feeling of unity and love inspired by a drug trip. But in Gush Katif, we united to look reality right in the face and say: we want to change it ? and we can! We don't have to let the people who hate us dictate reality. We can stand up for what is right and make a better and ethical world.



The cops and the soldiers, however, cut the party short. They took us away in busses and dropped us off at random bus stops. The newly homeless of Gush Katif were dropped off at hotels ? and with their communities, their homes and their hearts broken.



It wasn't just the neighborhoods of Gush Katif that the authorities wanted to break apart, they wanted to crush the Jewish spirit. For the rave of the Jewish spirit didn't just take place two weeks prior to the Disengagement. It took place in the lives of the people Gush Katif. Now, the rave of the Jewish spirit is taking place underground ? or in hotels and caravans ? part of a subculture that is demeaned and demonized.



It is not the subculture of the electro raves that will save the Jewish state. Those dazed, dancing teenagers will not be the ones who will have the courage to look evil in the eye and fight for a Jewish homeland. They can't discover what "evil" is in a world of nihilism. They call themselves Israelis, at best, but not Jewish.



It will be those teenagers in the wilderness of Gush Katif who will save the Jewish State. Those teenagers who cried: "Jew doesn't expel Jew!" and "Build ? do not destroy!" They will be the ones whose spirit can carry the Jewish nation to real justice, self-love, prosperity and lasting transcendence.